Chronic Stress

We all have stress. It is a normal and even helpful part of life. When it’s in normal range it can push us to make difficult decisions, take action, and perform better mentally and physically. In those cases, the sensation of stress elevates our cortisol, heart rate, and other processes and then goes back down to baseline.

What most of us are experiencing today, however, is a chronic elevation of our cortisol because our lifestyles create a million micro-stressors every day. Each little hiccup triggers your body and mind, calling for help.

Here’s what happens: Cortisol is awesome. It is necessary for our “fight or flight”. It stops your digestive processes, speeds up your heart rate and gets you ready to run. It’s a wonderful and necessary hormone. Since it is involved in saving your life quite literally, your body prioritizes its availability. Because most of us drink too much coffee, sleep too little, and eat our meals in front of a screen, our adrenals (who make cortisol) are worn out and can’t produce any more. Your body is brilliant. Kind of like when you need buttermilk for a recipe but don’t have any so you put some lemon juice in regular milk, your body thinks, “Well, I don’t have cortisol but I have the main ingredients so I’ll just make some!” Guess what those main ingredients are……your sex hormones of testosterone, estrogen and progesterone. So your body takes those hormones to stop them from doing their “non-essential” tasks and turns them into cortisol. Meanwhile, your fat-burning slows down, your libido tanks, and you feel foggy, puffy and funky.

And that’s just what happens to your hormones. What do you think happens to your digestion that keeps getting mildly interrupted by all this fake “fight or flight”? You don’t digest food as well as you should. You make poor food choices based off your body’s stress response instead of what’s nutritious.

Your immunity? Well, many studies have shown how critical immune system markers get turned down by chronic stress, leading to you having seasonal or food allergies and/or catching colds very easily. In some cases instead they turn on you, creating a great deal of inflammation and autoimmune disorders.